before bed
by Laura x Tennant
Summary: Tentoo and Rose make up after an argument.


"Hey."

The Doctor looked up. Rose was leaning against the doorframe of their living room with a sheepish expression on her face. He sniffed, and tilted his head to continue watching the telly. "Hello."

"I'm sorry," she murmured. In his peripheral vision he saw her fidgeting, scratching her forehead as she struggled to voice her apology. "I really am."

He let her wait for a few seconds, then gave in. It had been a silly fight; she hadn't meant the things she'd said. At least, he was pretty sure she hadn't. He heaved a sigh and replied, "I'm sorry too."

"Can I…?" She gestured to where he was laying on the sofa.

"What, you want to switch?" he teased.

Rose's brow furrowed and she stalked over to him determinedly. "No. But you didn't answer the texts I sent you, so I thought I'd come to you."

His lips twitched. "You texted me from the bedroom?"

"Yes." She plonked down at the other end of the sofa, then seemed to change her mind, nudging his legs out of the way so that she could crawl in between them and drape herself on top of him.

With effort, he extracted his squashed arm from beneath her and reached over his head to the side table, rummaging for his phone, which he'd turned on silent as soon as he'd made up his temporary bed on the sofa. He had five text messages from Rose.

_Ok so you can come back to bed now._

_No, really. Come on._

_Doctor you don't actually have to sleep on the sofa_

_Are you ignoring me?_

_…I love you?_

The Doctor smirked, then tossed his phone aside, wrapping his arms around her back. "Can't sleep without me?" he asked smugly.

"It's not that. It's just, Mum always said that you shouldn't go to bed angry. That you should always try to sort things out before going to sleep. Otherwise, it'd get either better but in a bad way, or even worse."

"Better in a bad way?"

"Yeah, like, brushing aside the issue. And then it goes unresolved - 'til we have our next fight, and then it'll be worse, because it's built up or whatever."

He nodded. "Ah. Makes sense."

"I doubt she takes her own advice where her rows with Dad are concerned though."

"Mm. Remember when we took them to Antigua?"

She wrinkled her nose. He knew that because he could feel the motion against his neck, where she had buried her face. "Yeah, why did we do that again?"

"Your idea," he snorted. "You said it would be a nice anniversary present for them."

"I didn't think we'd actually have to go with them."

"We provided the transport."

"Yeah but we could've like, dropped them off and gone our separate ways. Instead of getting lumbered with looking after Tony for the whole trip and passing messages between them whilst they argued."

"Ah, but at least they came out of it stronger," he smirked. "They renewed their vows after that trip. Romantic, eh?"

"They'd only been married for five years!"

"Still, better a vow renewal than a divorce."

Rose huffed in displeasure at the 'd' word. "Doctor, my parents will never get a divorce. They are far too stubborn for that, thank god."

He stroked his hand down her back. "Grasping their second chance with both hands, that's all," he said softly.

Rose raised her head to give him a significant look, but he just smiled at her and leant in to peck her on the lips. She folded her arms on his chest and propped her head up, and they just looked at each other for a little while. "This was the first big fight we've had since we got married."

"Yep." He lacked sufficient energy to pop the 'p.' "At least we didn't wake the neighbours."

"It's three in the morning," she realised, glancing at the clock.

"Yeah."

"You're really tired."

"Mmm."

"Thing is," she continued, stroking her finger along his jaw and down his neck. "We need to make up before we sleep. To resolve things."

"Pretty sure your mother's advice extended to talking rather than - "

"Doctor. Since when have you preferred to 'talk' over - "

She was right, of course. He didn't want to hash out their argument again, he just wanted the reassurance that things were okay between them, reassurance that they could quite happily get via - well. Taking their clothes off.

So he kissed her quickly, interrupting her, fumbling for the remote and turning the telly off. He'd been channel-flicking before Rose's arrival on his lap, and he had absolutely zero interest in the football match that had just commenced. His hands slipped down to her bum, encouraging her into a straddling position.

When Rose pushed herself up, breaking the kiss, he gazed up at her, his mouth still open. "Sure you're not too knackered?" she asked. She smoothed her hands down his pyjama top. "We can just cuddle."

"We can cuddle afterwards," he suggested, and slid his fingers beneath her vest top, pushing it up her torso.

After, when they were cuddling naked on the sofa with a blanket haphazardly draped over Rose's back, the Doctor murmured, "I just realised something."

"Hmm?"

"What we were saying about Pete and Jackie arguing in Antigua?"

"Yeah?"

"That was our fault, wasn't it? Because Jackie got annoyed that Pete had let you and me take Tony water skiing."

"Yeah, but don't pin it on me. You said it was perfectly safe for kids!"

"It is! He loved it! Just because your mother almost drowned, she was so useless at it, doesn't mean that - "

Rose snorted with laughter. "Blimey, if we ever have kids - " she cut herself off abruptly.

The Doctor squeezed her waist, prompting her to continue. "Yes?"

He felt her smile into his chest. "Well, I just hope they're like Tony, that they like all that stuff. It was pretty good fun."

"'Pretty good?' Rose Tyler. It was more than 'pretty good.'"

She shifted her position slightly, tucking her head in between his neck and shoulder so that her nose nuzzled against his jaw, her fingers trailing soothingly through his chest hair. "Promise me we'll take them all over the world?"

"I promise," he whispered, dropping a kiss to her forehead. Then he frowned. "Wait, you weren't talking about your parents, were you? Because as good as Antigua was, overall, I'd really rather we - "

"No. I wasn't talking about my parents," she confirmed, giggling softly.

He smiled, and inhaled deeply, feeling his eyelids grow heavy. "Rose?"

"Mmm?"

"Night night."

She kissed his neck. "Night."

"Rose?"

"Yeah?" she laughed.

"Love you."

"Love you too, Doctor. Sleep now."

"Yeah."


End file.
